Studiously Secretive
by Keynn
Summary: Nanao chose the life of witchcraft predominantly for its potential to blend-in in the non-magical world, but no being of the world of magic is immune to the effects of Halloween; now it's very possible her literature class teaching assistant, Kyoraku Shunsui, is putting the pieces together to discover she's been hiding something.


**I don't own Bleach.**

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**Studiously Secretive**

_ShunNao_

Ise Nanao had been born into a family of incredibly people, who had all subsequently been murdered in incredibly ways, excluding her brother who, upon his eighteenth birthday, discovered himself to be a werewolf and fled for the mountains, where he remained most days.

Nanao hadn't kept great contact with him, but they talked over the phone every now and again about this or that . . .and witchcraft, which was Nanao's profession. He'd laugh when the subject came up, and she'd hang up because she didn't want to hear his speech about how 'no respectable foot solider of the magical world settles on becoming a witch.'

Nanao's family did a fairly decent job of reminding her that those who do (become witches or wizards that is) tend to live longer; Nanao is a logical woman, now at the solid age of eighteen herself, and she thinks that the rest of the magical community must just be stupid. She can do with witchcraft thousands of more productive things than sucking blood and loosing her mind to full moons. A simple spell will turn her into a cat (her preferred transfiguration) and a normal sandwich will satisfy her hunger. In addition, she doesn't have to conceal herself in the waking hours, and she can interact with humans as if she were normal. Usually, if she'd been any other person, it might have been more troublesome, but Nanao prides herself on her self-control and has, thus far, been able to refrain from doing anything too rash. Only a truly level-headed witch can succeed where she has. Nanao has managed to integrate herself into a full fledged university.

Kyoraku Shunsui was just headed out of the bar for the afternoon. His best mate, and fellow graduate student Ukitake Juushiro had bid him farewell an hour ago to set up for a Halloween party his fiance, Retsu, was hosting, and quite frankly, drinking alone was just not near as fun.

_Halloween_, Shunsui thought as he meandered back to the apartment he and Juu shared. He whistled happily, enjoying the slight buzz. The holiday would be in full swing in a couple of hours, around nine or so, and he would head to the party around that time. On a whim, Shunsui's feet guided him to the university grounds, it wasn't until he had nearly arrived did he notice he wasn't on his way home, but knowing that he had no where else to be, and not particularly liking the idea of being recruited into helping Juu should his friend need him, Shunsui opted to hang around. Killing a little time before he showed up to the party would be no problem. He headed for the lightly wooded area near the dorms, intent on seeing the orange and red of the season. When he was there, he came across something a little more bizarre.

Nanao cursed when the concealing magic began to fizzle. It was, of course, expected, and more irritatingly, unavoidable. Any other day, she could hide her pointy hat, her long stockings, her short dress, her wand (all incredibly cliche, all very un-Nanao) but the power of October 31st would drag them out at night. In previous years staying home would resolve all problems resulting from the unrestrained magic, which is what this was. Nanao thought in dismay. She frowned, thinking hard on a solution. She'd read books on suppressing the magic, but the simple fact of the matter was that her magical reserve was vast beyond compare and heightened by the night of Halloween made it very hard for her to control at all, much less suppress. She huffed, and as if to mock her a pumpkin sprouted at her feet. She jumped back, glared at the offending melon and snapped her fingers, it exploded and disappeared at the exact time her hat popped into existence on her head.

Shunsui, as he walked to the young woman at the edge of the meadow (who'd successfully done something rather interesting to a pumpkin) made an effort to remember where he knew her from.

"Good evening lovely!" He called out. The young woman jumped, grabbed the witch hat off of her head and turned to him. She was a pretty thing, dark hair, pulled back into a clip, a little bookish as far as appearance went, she was wearing glasses after all, but her eyes were a beautiful shade of purple he couldn't recall seeing on many other people. She squinted at him, and a look of recognition passed her features.

"Kyoraku-sensei." She stated primly. "Good evening."

"Yare, yare, sensei?" He asked, puzzled, scratching the stubble on his chin. "Are you in one of my classes?" The woman nodded, month opened to respond. She stopped suddenly.

"Excuse me." She bowed politely, but quickly and ran further into the woods, vanishing briefly thereafter. Curious now, and intrigued Shunsui grinned, strolling along after her. He found her just as her clothes began to disintegrating. Shunsui briefly considered retreating, it would be rude to spy on the woman after all, but he couldn't help himself and so ducked behind a tree and then peered past it back to her. The show, while not what he expected, was fascinating none-the-less. As the regular clothes vanished a little black dress began appearing, it was lacy and puffy and the woman looked positively uncomfortable as it worked it's way up. Shunsui stopped. Wait! Yes, he knew where he'd seen her! Nanao Ise of his advanced literature class. She was the quiet girl who sat in the second row. Very intelligent if he remembered correctly, she'd pointed out errors in his lectures a time or two. Very cold, too. Her voice had always been very formal. Yes, he remembered her perfectly, he always made it a point to remember the youngest girls in his class. He leaned against the tree, a small thunk residing as he continued his thoughts, a goofy grin spreading across his features.

The small sound resounded, however, and Nanao stiffened.

"Present yourself!" She yelled in the direction of his tree. Her wand had just shown up, and she pointed it menacingly in the same direction, her eyes narrowed into slits. Dangerous. Shunsui turned back to her, caught off guard and thought better of sneaking away. With a good natured smile he held up his hands, sliding out from behind the tree.

"Kyoraku-sensei!" Nanao growled. Shunsui laughed, the change in her appearance, the change in her attitude. In class she'd always been very respectful.

"Now, now Nanao-chan." He smiled, lowering his hands. "I just wanted to make sure nothing happened to my cute little student." Nanao stiffened noticeably.

"Nanao-chan? Cute?" She frowned. "Don't use such informal addresses sir, it denotes your proper respect, and I am fine. Clearly."

"Not so Nanao-chan!" He responded, ignoring her, "Your clothes have just evaporated, I saw them do so!" It was a clear request for explanation, disguised by his handsome features and goofy light-heartedness, and if possibly Nanao's back got considerably more stiff.

"A tick." She stated quickly, disregarding the address completely. "For Halloween. This is my costume."

"A clever trick." Shunsui grinned, she could tell though, he hadn't bought it in the least. "For a very clever student. Are you going to a party Nanao-chan?"

"Stop calling me that sir."

"You didn't answer my question." He smiled again, always smiling, always grinning. Just like in class. Nanao caught herself indulging thoughts of attraction to him, which only worsened her currently horrific situation.

"No sir."

"So formal Nanao-chan, it's not necessary." Another smile. "Then you must be going trick-or-treating?"

"Of course not, I've grown out of such traditions." Nanao replied, edging away from her teaching assistant, further into the tree line. If she could lose him, she could find a place to hide away for the night. Preferably a place where a patch of random pumpkins would not be overly suspicious.

"Well then." Said Shunsui, his grin very large now, as though an idea had struck him (which it had) "You're already dressed up for the occasion, so you must come to my roommate's party, at a personal invitation from me."

"Absolutely not." Nanao stated, there, her exit had opened up. "Accepting an invitation from you for anything would be very unprofessional. You are my teacher, you should not be offering such things." She turned around to make her exit.

Shunsui was an intelligent man, lazy to a fault, but absolutely brilliant, and he knew a mystery when he saw one. That this mystery happened to be a very straight-laced and beautiful student held an appeal Shunsui hadn't been attracted to in a very long time. He'd always been fascinated by her in class, partly because it was a small class and he'd been able to learn a number of things about nearly all the students in it very quickly _except _for her, but mostly because this was the first real conversation he'd held with her, during which point she'd magically changed clothing and disintegrated a pumpkin. He was enchanted. He was curious. He wasn't taking no for an answer.

"Nonsense!" He sang, and grabbed her hand just before she was able to bolt. The contact sent a small hum of something warm and alluring up his forearm, which he noted but decided to investigate later. "Juu will be delighted to have you come!" And he tugged her lightly, but with intent back toward the campus. Nanao struggled in a dignified manner, which Shunsui had to admit was impressive.

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_In the spirit of Halloween (my favorite holiday) and born from a desire to AU one of my favorite couples (Although this is like the third time I've done an AU of them. :P) I've decided to make this two-shot. :') I understand that this is very OOC, I'm really sorry, I think it's because I altered their age and situation so much I couldn't figure out how to adapt them. Hate me if you want to. :')_


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